Did
you know that when you “google” something you only access a fraction of the World
Wide Web? Indeed, commercial search engines only scratch the surface, about 5
percent, of the web. The rest of the virtual world, called the deep web, is largely
inaccessible to the average Joe and consists of databases, emails, social media
and chat forums. Even further into the depths of the web is a separate space
called the dark web, which can only be accessed through encrypted browsers that
preserve the users’ anonymity. Here, beyond the reach of the traditional law
enforcement community, transnational organized criminals trade in anything from
humans, narcotics, arms, and counterfeit goods, and facilitate marketplaces for
child pornography, money laundering, assassins-for-hire, and hacker toolkits.

The
availability of cyber black markets creates a convenient platform for rogue
individuals and criminal organizations around the world to buy and sell illicit
products with impunity. It also creates the potential for the proliferation of
global trafficking networks that often fund extremism. Recently,
however, some innovative technologies are
emerging that allow law enforcement officials to explore and monitor cyber
black markets and give reason for hope in the fight against cyber trafficking.

In
2013, the FBI forcefully took
control of the Freedom Hosting servers
which held over 100
child pornography sites with thousands of users, leading to the arrest of
its founder Eric Marques, and the seizure of
suspected illegal vending
sites. Similarly, the FBI arrested Ross Ulbricht,
the creator of the illicit vendor site Silk
Road, on charges of selling narcotics, computer hacking, and money
laundering. The Silk Road enabled over 100,000 people to buy and sell illegal
drugs anonymously while laundering over $100 million in transactions across 10
countries. At the time of arrest, the site hosted over 13,000 listings for
drugs of all kinds, 159 listings for hacking services, and 801 listings for
other illicit digital goods. While these are specific examples relating to
transnational organized crime, the Stimson Center’s Managing Across
Boundaries
initiative has extensively explored the corrosive effects of illicit networks
on international peace and security.

The
problem with these cases is that the individuals arrested arereplaceable
and, with plenty of other black market sites to turn to, their removal is but a
minor setback for the actual
criminal enterprises involved. Rather than continue this “whack-a-mole”
approach, successful strategies to target cyber black markets need to use a
choke-point approach. For example, many cyber black market purchases use bitcoins (BTC), a
virtual currency that keeps transacting parties anonymous through online
wallets. However, each wallet has an attached public transaction ledger, called
the blockchain. Access to the blockchain
actually makes tracing laundered money relatively straightforward; all that’s
missing are end user details. By aggregating details like this from online
interactions, law enforcement can trace supply chains, times of exchanges,
amounts per exchange, and other critical information in any law enforcement
investigation. Instead of relying on tracking down a facilitator, which as seen
above only briefly interrupts these vast trading networks, law enforcement can
use the data available to chart networks and identify intervention choke points
that could efficiently cripple entire enterprises.

One
such initiative has started to do just that. The Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA) under the U.S. Department of Defense has embarked on a
partnership with private software developers to create data analytic tools that
can trace activity in the dark web. This program, called Memex, will be part
of their broader initiative to track illicit activity. Memex works to address
deficiencies in current search engines to improve tracking, monitoring and
storage capabilities necessary in catching illicit users, while remaining weary of invading the
individual anonymity of users due to general emerging privacy concerns and the
legitimate use of anonymity tools in political activism and journalism.

The
fight against human trafficking is a good example of the kinds of capabilities
Memex can bring to the table in countering illicit trafficking. Escort advertisement
pages are temporarily displayed to an audience in specific geographic locations
only, giving a large clue to law enforcement officials as to destination and
perhaps source areas in the trade. Memex is able to collect these advertisements,
map out the data by volume according to location and timeframe, and
connect the networks internationally through shared characteristics like titles, emails, phone
numbers, vernacular and even photograph features such as background furniture.
With this information on the overlapping structures and geographical
concentrations of criminal groups, law enforcement will be better able to identify
and target the source, destination and even transit points in the trade. The potential Memex holds for documenting the
online activity of international illicit networks could be instrumental in
destabilizing all forms of transnational organized crime by tracking their
presence online.

As
the use of the internet has vastly facilitated legal commerce, it has also done
the same for criminal enterprise. Non-invasive data analytic tools such as
Memex can be used to supplement law enforcement in mapping out illicit
organizations. Ultimately, tools like Memex provide a nuanced response to
criminal enterprises turning to the convenience of cyber black markets by
allowing law enforcement to better understand transnational criminal
networks and their vulnerable choke points.

In January, Head of UN Peacekeeping Operations Hervé Ladsous told the UN Security Council that the situation in northern Mali remains “extremely volatile” in light of the presence of terrorist groups and almost daily attacks on peacekeepers, including the latest rocket assault on a UN base on March 8. Since the initial deployment of the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), a peacekeeper has been killed or wounded, on average, every four days, making northern Mali one of the deadliest settings for peacekeepers in recent history. The situation in Mali is illustrative of the complex and asymmetric environments in which peacekeeping missions have been deployed in recent years. How the UN addresses the dilemmas facing today’s peacekeeping missions will be critical in determining the future of peace operations and the tools available for the resolution of today’s most pressing global security challenges.

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2015-03-27T15:40:15+00:00Joshua T. White Named Senior Advisor &amp; Director for South Asian Affairs at National Security Councilhttp://www.stimson.org/spotlight/joshua-t-white-named-senior-advisor-director-for-south-asian-affairs-at-national-security-council/
http://www.stimson.org/spotlight/joshua-t-white-named-senior-advisor-director-for-south-asian-affairs-at-national-security-council/#When:19:15:58ZThe
Stimson Center announced today that Joshua T. White, Senior Associate and
Co-Director of the South Asia program, is taking leave from the Center to join
the National Security Council staff as Senior Advisor and Director for South
Asian Affairs. He joins former Stimson board member Peter R. Lavoy, who has
been appointed as the Senior Director for South Asian Affairs.

“We wish Josh well at the White House and look forward to our future work
together on this critical region of the world,” said Stimson Co-Founder Michael
Krepon.

Before joining Stimson, White served as Senior Advisor for Asian and Pacific
Security Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, a position he held
in conjunction with an International Affairs Fellowship from the Council on
Foreign Relations. While at the Pentagon, he covered a wide range of defense
issues related to India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the department's rebalance
to the Asia-Pacific.

“It has been a tremendous honor to work with Michael and the entire Stimson
team,” said Joshua T. White. “I consider it a privilege to take up these issues
at the NSC at a time when U.S. engagement in South Asia is as important as it
has ever been.”

Stimson is accepting applications for the Deputy Director of the South Asia
program. Interested applicants can learn more about the position here.

The Stimson Center is a nonprofit, nonpartisan institution devoted to enhancing
international peace and security through a unique combination of rigorous
analysis and outreach. Founded in 1989, Stimson is celebrating a
quarter-century of building effective security solutions through
pragmatic research and innovative analysis.
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2015-03-26T19:15:58+00:00Barry M. Blechman, Francis Q. Hoang, Courtney Banks Spaeth Join Stimson Boardhttp://www.stimson.org/spotlight/barry-m-blechman-francis-q-hoang-courtney-banks-spaeth-join-stimson-board/
http://www.stimson.org/spotlight/barry-m-blechman-francis-q-hoang-courtney-banks-spaeth-join-stimson-board/#When:17:00:32Z
The
Stimson Center is pleased to announce
today the newest members of the organization’s Board of Directors: Francis Q. Hoang and Courtney Banks Spaeth. The
Center also welcomes back to the board Stimson Co-founder and long-term
Chairman, Barry M. Blechman.

“This new cohort
of Stimson trustees reflects both continuity and change,” said Stimson
President and CEO Ellen Laipson. “It’s great to have our co-founder back on the
board after several years of leading major Stimson projects on national
security, defense budget, and nuclear policy issues. Francis Hoang and Courtney Banks Spaeth are
dynamic rising players in the private sector, with deep national security
experience. We know that they will each
bring valuable skills and wisdom to our board.”

Barry M.
Blechman is the Co-Founder of the Stimson Center. He was also the founder and
president of DFI International Inc., a research and consulting company in
Washington, D.C., until its sale in 2007. Blechman has more than 50 years of
distinguished service in the national security field. An expert on
political/military policies, military strategy, and defense budgets and
industries, he has worked in the Departments of State and Defense and at the
Office of Management and Budget, and is a frequent consultant to the U.S. government
on a wide range of subjects. Blechman holds a PhD in International Relations from
Georgetown University, has taught at several universities, and has written
extensively on national security issues.

Francis Q. Hoang currently
serves as Chief Strategy Officer of Momentum Aviation Group (MAG) and as a
Partner at Fluet Huber + Hoang (FH+H). MAG is a privately held, private-equity
backed company that operates planes, helicopters, and UAVs (drones) that
provide and enable real time situational awareness to government, international,
and commercial customers. FH+H is a values-based law firm focused on middle
market companies with a nexus to international trade, defense, and national
security. Mr. Hoang has previously served as a law clerk to the Senate
Judiciary Committee, clerked for Judge Thomas Griffith on the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, and was appointed by President George W. Bush as
an Associate White House Counsel and Special Assistant to the President in
2007.

Courtney Banks Spaeth is one of
the nation’s foremost experts in business development and corporate growth. She
has widespread experience in both the public and private sectors, having worked
in the White House, the Department of Defense, and as an executive in Fortune
100 corporations. Spaeth holds a Masters Degree in National Security Studies
from Georgetown University and a BA, with honors, in Military History from the
University of Pennsylvania. Founded in 2007, growth. helps companies achieve
growth through business development, and provides transaction advisory services
to private equity firms. Clients include Lockheed Martin, Verizon, Genesys,
Zebra, Nemacolin Woodlands Resort, HIG Capital, SAB Capital, and many other
Fortune 500, middle market, and private equity firms in the U.S. and
internationally.

The
Stimson Center is a nonprofit, nonpartisan institution devoted to enhancing
international peace and security through a unique combination of rigorous analysis
and outreach. Founded in 1989, Stimson is celebrating a quarter-century of
building effective security solutions through pragmatic research and innovative
analysis.

]]>
2015-03-26T17:00:32+00:00Sea Change: Evolving Maritime Geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific Regionhttp://www.stimson.org/spotlight/sea-change-evolving-maritime-geopolitics-in-the-indo-pacific-region/
http://www.stimson.org/spotlight/sea-change-evolving-maritime-geopolitics-in-the-indo-pacific-region/#When:17:01:32ZSea Change: Evolving Maritime Geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific Regionbegan in the fall of 2013 when the US-based Stimson Center partnered with India’s Observer Research Foundation (ORF) to launch a research initiative analyzing the maritime policy challenges and opportunities arising across the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific as these areas emerge as central theaters of 21st century geopolitics. In particular, the project aimed to illuminate the evolving role that the waters, shipping lanes, and natural resources of the Indo-Pacific will play in shaping relationships between major regional and extra-regional powers while also examining the various ways that energy exploration and exploitation, infrastructure development, and environmental pressures will impact the Indo-Pacific littoral in the coming years and decades.

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2015-03-25T17:01:32+00:00Stimson’s Michael Krepon Receives CEIP Lifetime Achievement Awardhttp://www.stimson.org/spotlight/stimsons-michael-krepon-receives-ceip-lifetime-achievement-award/
http://www.stimson.org/spotlight/stimsons-michael-krepon-receives-ceip-lifetime-achievement-award/#When:15:37:25ZStimson
Center Co-Founder Michael Krepon received a lifetime achievement award from the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace today for his work to reduce nuclear
dangers. The award was presented at the Endowment’s 2015 International Nuclear
Policy Conference in Washington, D.C. before 800 attendees. Krepon was
recognized for demonstrating “exceptional creativity, integrity, humanity and
amity,” and for making “major intellectual contributions to critical debates”
on nuclear issues as well as for mentoring rising talent in the United States,
Pakistan, and India.

“I am grateful to the Carnegie Endowment for this award,” said Michael
Krepon. “There are no easy victories in this business. Every
accomplishment comes with great struggle to overcome long odds. The Stimson
Center is a great place to shorten the odds.”

Krepon co-founded the Stimson Center in 1989, a Washington-based think tank,
which he ran until 2000. During this period, Stimson led nongovernmental
efforts to promote nonproliferation by championing the Comprehensive Test Ban
Treaty, the indefinite extension of the Nonproliferation Treaty, and the
Chemical Weapons Convention. Stimson incubated policy initiatives that were
subsequently embraced by U.S. presidents, including the Treaty on Open Skies
that permits cooperative aerial inspections over hotspots like Ukraine and
Russia. Fellow Stimson Co-Founder Barry Blechman steered a
Stimson task force, including General Andrew Goodpaster and Paul Nitze, to
promote a rethinking of the role of nuclear weapons and the wisdom of seeking
to eliminate them after the demise of the Soviet Union.

“I’m thrilled by this well-deserved recognition of Michael’s sustained
commitment to reducing nuclear dangers, especially in South Asia,” said Stimson
President and CEO Ellen Laipson. “His tenacity and creativity have made a
lasting contribution to how we — and thoughtful people in India and Pakistan—
understand the threats, and what to do about them.”

After stepping down as President and CEO of Stimson, Krepon taught in the
Politics Department at the University of Virginia as a Diplomat Scholar until 2010.
During this time he continued to direct Stimson’s programming to reduce nuclear
dangers in South Asia and to prevent a dangerous military competition in space.
Krepon has been a champion of confidence-building and nuclear risk-reduction
measures between India and Pakistan and a code of conduct for responsible
space-faring nations.

From 1979 to 1981, Krepon worked on U.S.-Soviet nuclear arms control at the
State Department in the Carter administration. Prior to that, he worked on
Capitol Hill where he staffed successful amendments to eliminate funding for a
new generation of chemical weapons — a necessary step before the negotiation of
the Chemical Weapons Convention. Krepon has written and edited twenty books
focused on nuclear nonproliferation, space security, and reducing nuclear
dangers in South Asia.

The Stimson Center is a nonprofit, nonpartisan institution devoted to enhancing
international peace and security through a unique combination of rigorous
analysis and outreach. Founded in 1989, Stimson is celebrating a
quarter-century of building effective security solutions through pragmatic
research and innovative analysis.

]]>
2015-03-24T15:37:25+00:00Yemen: What’s at Stake for the United States?http://www.stimson.org/spotlight/yemen-whats-at-stake-for-the-united-states/
http://www.stimson.org/spotlight/yemen-whats-at-stake-for-the-united-states/#When:16:28:54ZBy Rachel Stohl and Shannon Dick:

On January 22,
Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and his cabinet resigned under
pressure from Houthi rebels — a Shi’a-backed group from northern Yemen — after
the group seized much of the capital as well as the presidential palace. The
dissolution of the Yemeni government threw the already fragile country into
deeper chaos and instability, and roused concerns that Yemen might fall into a
dangerous civil war.

Less than two
months later, U.S. officials have acknowledged that they are unable to account
for more than $500 million in U.S. weapons, according to the Washington Post. While it is unclear these weapons have fallen into
the hands of Iranian-backed rebels, al Qaeda affiliates, or other nefarious
actors, the potential threat of these weapons being captured and used by those
opposed to U.S. interests cannot be understated.

In response to
the January unrest, the United States, France, and the United Kingdom closed
their Yemen embassies. The Central Intelligence Agency also scaled back
counterterrorism operations amid growing security concerns. The Pentagon
acknowledged that unrest and uncertainty in the country had affected their
counterterrorism efforts, and the closure of the U.S. embassy further
compounded those challenges. As early as February, a U.S.
defense official told The
Guardian that the unrest in Yemen had “limited our ability
to conduct routine end-use monitoring checks and inspections we would normally
perform.”

Now, the
Department of Defense (DOD) has admitted that they cannot
monitor the weapons the United States has provided Yemen as part of its defense
and security relationship — which includes a variety of weapons and non-lethal
items — such as small arms, helicopters, patrol boats, aircraft, ammunition,
night-vision goggles, body armor, and Humvees.

The United
States has invested more than half a billion dollars in military and security
assistance for Yemen since 2009. This also includes assistance from various Department
of State and DOD accounts — such as weapons — but also assistance for training
and other counterterrorism operations under the Combating
Terrorism Fellowship Program (CTFP) and International Narcotics Control and
Law Enforcement (INCLE) programs, among others. The DOD’s Section 1206 “train
and equip” fund represents by far the largest source of overt U.S. assistance
to Yemen, accounting for more than half of all assistance provided in the past five
years. While not a comprehensive list, the below chart provides a snapshot of a
few key military and security assistance programs of which Yemen has been a
consistent recipient.

*NADR and INCLE
programs were also provided through Overseas Contingency
Operations funding

Recent events in Yemen put U.S. operations in
question. Yemen has been a key actor in the United States’ effort to fight al
Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which U.S. officials have claimed “poses
a more direct threat to the U.S. homeland than any other terrorist group.” As a
result, weapons and military assistance to Yemen have flowed relatively freely over
the last five years. This defense relationship has continued despite U.S.
knowledge of human rights abuses, such as Yemen’s use of child
soldiers in their military campaign, which the State
Department has continuously identified and for which the U.S. has consistently
waived prohibitions on assistance due to national security interests.

As a central part of its counterterrorism
operations, the United States has also undertaken a prolonged drone campaign in
Yemen. Strikes occurred after the Houthi takeover, even though the United
States had relied heavily on the former Yemeni government’s intelligence,
authorization, and coordination. According to the New America Foundation, there
have been 106 drone strikes in Yemen since 2010, with the most recent occurring
on March 2. Future strikes may be in doubt, however, as the United States will
have to determine if strategic objectives are able to be met without
cooperation from the Yemeni government.

Losing track of U.S. provided weapons is unfortunately
not a new phenomenon for the United States. We have seen similar circumstances
in Afghanistan, where the SIGAR
report found that officials may have lost track of more
than 43% of small arms supplied to Afghanistan security forces. More recently,
in Iraq, photos of U.S. weapons in the hands of Islamic State (IS) militants reflect
the situation on the ground after IS routed the Iraqi army and captured scores
of U.S.-supplied weapons. As the United States considers future sales to Syrian
rebels and potential lethal aid to Ukraine, the lessons of lost weapons must be
recognized. With fast-changing political dynamics in these countries at risk
and at war, the legacy of U.S. weapons as a potential threat to U.S. interests,
soldiers, and allies poses a direct challenge to foreign policy and national
security.

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2015-03-18T16:28:54+00:00Conflict Basins: Dampening The Water Warshttp://www.stimson.org/spotlight/conflict-basins-dampening-the-water-wars/
http://www.stimson.org/spotlight/conflict-basins-dampening-the-water-wars/#When:13:29:53ZBy David Michel and Ricky Passarelli:

Global threats transcend national borders and force actors to seek
concrete solutions to common challenges. On the major transnational dangers of
our day – conflict, climate change, weapons and beyond – Stimson seeks
solutions that will work now and in the years to come. This Spotlight is the
first in a series focusing on Stimson’s work around the world to address the
major transnational security challenges of our time. - Editor's Note

In an era of ongoing frictions over shared natural
resources, from fisheries, to forests, to fossil fuels, it may be the world’s most renewable resource that in fact presents
the toughest security challenges. Water is essential for human well-being, yet is
under constant threat. Unlike oil and gas, water has no feasible replacement. At
the beginning of the 21st century, compounding impacts from
burgeoning population growth, climate change, and wasteful or ineffective water
governance are exerting unsustainable strains on many of the world’s most
critical waterways and has stoked tensions along their paths.

Dwindling supplies, shifting ecologies, and growing
consumption are particularly stressful for emerging conflict basins — geopolitically important regions of Africa, the
Middle East, and Asia where heightened competition for shared water resources
poses prospective conflict risks. Now and in the years to come, the Stimson
Center Environmental Security Program is focusing efforts towards studying
these threatened regions and exploring ways in which communities, stakeholders,
and governments can build cooperative approaches towards better management and
more stable futures.

Conflict basins all face three of the same principal
challenges — rapid demographic change, mounting environmental degradation, and
deepening water insecurity. Setting them apart from other water-stressed regions,
conflict basins are characterized by persistent, potentially destabilizing levels
of political tension between two or more basin states. In the Indus Basin, for
example, Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan all depend on the river and its
tributaries for agriculture, drinking water supplies, industry, and hydropower.
But the often fraught political relationships among these three countries considerably
hampers the effective management of the increasingly over-utilized resource.

At the same time, conflict basins demonstrate the complex
pathways by which environmental challenges can contribute to political conflicts.
In the Niger River Basin of West Africa, for example, shifting rainfall
patterns over the past decades have pushed migratory herders ever further south
in search grazing grounds. There they have clashed with sedentary farmers over
access to watering points and arable land. In the opening months of 2014, more
than 1,000 people were killed in such encounters in central Nigeria alone.

Paradoxically, conflict basins also show how the roots of tension
and instability can often lie in disputes over managing environmental
resources. Thus, in the Tigris-Euphrates Basin, upstream Turkey has long
pursued a program of dam construction for irrigation and hydropower. But Turkey’s projects to ensure water, food,
and energy security for its population are perceived by downstream Iraq and
Syria as enduring sources of insecurity, giving Ankara potential control of its
neighbors’ vital water supplies. Throughout the 1980s and 90s, Syria wielded
support for the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and its insurgent activities as a
counterweight against Turkey’s latent ability to manipulate water flows in the
Euphrates. Today, crucial water supplies in the Tigris-Euphrates have become prime
tools and objectives of the civil conflicts in Iraq and Syria. The Mosul Dam in
Iraq, for instance, has been used by ISIS to threaten both floods and supply
shortages for the downstream community of over half a million people. Water in
such cases serves as a divisive strategic asset, a “threat multiplier,” and
even a political bargaining chip.

Global climate change risks further aggravating the water
resource challenges facing policy makers. The UN-based Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change (IPCC) projects that continuing global warming will disrupt
temperature and precipitation patterns around the planet, generating more
severe floods and droughts, and scrambling the timing, location, and amounts of
rainfall and snowfall. According to recent assessments by a team at MIT, by
2050, the combined effects of socio-economic pressures and unchecked climate
change could plunge an additional 1-1.3 billion people into conditions where
water requirements will consistently exceed available surface water supplies.

Yet just as tensions can rise over shared waters, they can
also be mitigated by collective actions. Recognizing their mutual dependence on
the Indus, India, and Pakistan have maintained the Indus Waters Treaty, which
divides control of the river’s main branches between the two countries for over
50 years, including through three wars and numerous periods of otherwise broken
diplomatic ties. Similar river basin agreements have helped communities from Africa
to Asia negotiate through difficult periods of transition and build mutually
beneficial water-sharing frameworks.

The
Stimson Center’s Environmental Security Program has worked to support such
cooperative governance structures through collaborative stakeholder engagement
and informal diplomatic initiatives. On the Indus, Stimson partnered with the
Observer Research Foundation (ORF) in India and the Sustainable Development
Policy Institute (SDPI) in Pakistan to gather a diverse team of policy analysts
and practitioners, scientists and environmental experts to detail the roots of
regional water problems. By working together in a multidisciplinary, unofficial
setting, the group was able to forge consensus recommendations outlining future
research, policies, and basin-planning efforts. Concerted efforts to cultivate
this type of collaborative hydro-diplomacy can benefit all basin countries and
foster cooperation where otherwise distrust may brew.

Conflict
basins are not new nor do they involve easy solutions. Yet as demands grow and resources
shift under climate pressures, the challenge to provide safe and secure water supplies
will only become stronger. By championing interventions that balance national
interests and increase multi-party participation, the Stimson Environmental
Security Program looks to promote shared waters as a bond for peace rather than
a bone of contention. Water supersedes political boundaries — so should the
strategies used to keep it flowing.

There is progress being
made in the countries most severely impacted by Ebola. Liberia released its
last confirmed Ebola patient during the first week of March and has not
reported any new cases since the beginning of the month. While the number of
cases in Sierra Leone and Guinea increased for that same period, improvements
in the timeliness of diagnostic testing in both countries hints at our growing
capacity to head off the sort of unchecked outbreaks that prompted (perhaps
unreasonable) fears of a global pandemic.

The lessons learned from
the earliest days of the outbreak point us toward improving our response to the
next crisis. High among those lessons must be a clearer understanding of how —
and how quickly — assistance could move to the worst stricken regions. The
initial stages of the emergency response to Ebola struggled to deploy essential
equipment and materiel where it was most needed and it was also hampered by the
absence of a deliberate planning process for transportation logistics. There
can be little doubt that this exacerbated the crisis. Fixing this challenge
must be a new global priority.

The Ebola outbreak of
2014 began in a remote area of Guinea in December 2013. It spread to other
remote communities and large cities in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, along
with a small number of sporadic cases in Nigeria and Mali. As worries over
spread of the disease grew, many of the limited air transit routes needed to
carry supplies to impoverished, isolated West Africa were threatened with
suspension. Public health authorities from the affected countries, as well as
experts from the international community, recognized limitations in capacity to
move critical medical goods were contributing to the spread of disease.

At best, the slowing or
shutting down of logistics routes during the Ebola crisis hampered resistance
efforts but at worst, with life-saving medical gear and protective wear failing
to reach regions and individuals in need, it proved life-threatening. A
September 2014 report from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian
Affairs (UNOCHA) states that an effective Ebola response would require 2,000
flights every month for healthcare workers, plus 4,000 flights per month for
aid workers, and an additional 3,242 tons of equipment shipments. Yet from
outbreak of Ebola in December 2013 to August 2014, commercial airlines
cancelled more than one third of international flights to affected regions,
reducing monthly flights to just 374 each month — despite the fact that the
World Health Organization never recommended travel bans.

There are additional
reports of transportation infrastructure issues delaying shipments, such as
those of humanitarian aid sitting on tarmacs for weeks at a time due to airline
cancellations and of reductions of 30 percent in container shipping to affected
areas due to docking bans in other countries. In one extreme case, $140,000
worth of donated equipment sat in containers on Sierra Leone’s docks for over
three months due to lack of coordination and refusal to pay shipping costs at
the governmental level. During these same months, from August-October of 2014,
infection rates of Ebola increased exponentially in Sierra Leone by 500%.

In short, augmenting existing
transportation capacity is essential to reducing Ebola disease transmission and
the number of cases.

A multilateral regional
mechanism to develop contingency plans for transportation logistics support
would be invaluable to respond to the current health crisis as well as future
health emergencies or natural disasters. Such a planning process could include
all major stakeholders from national governments, regional multilateral
organizations, the private sector, civil society, traditional and community
leaders, and non-governmental organizations.
The task would be to identify and discuss the types of logistic
resources that could be quickly committed — and in some cases, pre-committed — to
an emergency response and to facilitate the coordination and integration of the
effort. It may be advantageous to have a
small permanent staff under the aegis of a multilateral health or economic
development organization (such as the World Health Organization or the World
Bank) undertake regular reviews or updates to ensure the plan is always ready
for implementation.

Last year, President
Obama launched the Global Health Security Agenda to, “prevent, and detect, and
fight every kind of biological danger — whether it’s a pandemic like H1N1, or a
terrorist threat, or a treatable disease.” The Ebola outbreak highlighted
shortcomings in large scale outbreak response in the developing world. Because
critical resources did not arrive in affected communities in a timely manner,
the outbreak grew and became a major international crisis. Establishing a
regional, multilateral mechanism to undertake deliberate transportation
logistic planning for crisis contingencies could facilitate a more rapid and robust
response and help limit the consequences of future health crises. If the president’s
initiative is meaningful, it will address this glaring shortcoming.

___

Sharon
Jackson is a former Franklin Fellow at the US Department of State where she
worked on enhancing global health security and systems. Brian Finlay is Vice
President at Stimson.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t spell out an
effective way to block Iran’s path to the bomb in his address to
Congress. If Netanyahu were more candid, he would acknowledge the only
way to achieve his aims is through military strikes rather than
negotiations. In this event, Iran would have far more reason to build
nuclear weapons. If members of Congress who favor an agreement were
candid, they would acknowledge it will weaken global norms for
non-proliferation. If, however, Congress kills a deal that effectively
constrains Iran’s nuclear capabilities, the consequences for
proliferation will be far worse.

Congress is in a bind. We’re long past the point of closing the
barn door on Iran’s enrichment capability. Tehran built this capability
during the George W. Bush administration and expanded it greatly in the
Obama administration. At this juncture, the best of a poor set of
choices is to constrain Iran’s nuclear capability under close scrutiny.
Alternatively, Congress can seek ways to reject or block an agreement,
assuming one can be successfully negotiated. Rejection could lead to the
expulsion of international inspectors, and increased enrichment and
airstrikes. Airstrikes would lead down many roads, none of which point
to safe destinations.